Archive for DO SOMETHING

even if you are “good guy”
you must realize
that you still have a privilege
you still exert influence
even if you are not trying
you don’t get an award
for not raping
you don’t get a special status
for respecting a no
you aren’t a good guy
because you didn’t take advantage
you are only
not being awful

and you must recognize
that not being awful
is an aberration
you are a minority
because the majority
of men
act in awful ways
do awful things
intimidate
marginalize
take advantage
rape

and it is for this reason
that all men
even the so called not awful ones
will always be suspect

(Brief note- I have received over 150 350 responses already (within 36 hours) from people around the world so far in support of my short piece and it’s message and I am floored. I will write more after the NATO/G8 events- I am far too emotional right now to do so. Thank you all you lovely people <3 )
[The Listserve] "You Will Hang" and Other Things you don't want to hear on a Saturday Afternoon
In 1987, I was at a civil rights march in Cumming, GA (Brotherhood March II). I was grabbed by a coordinator towards the end- I was told to flank the woman next to me who was with a child in a stroller; there were people on the ridge next to us throwing rocks and bottles and screaming obscenities. As I tried to turn my body into a shield I directly faced these people screaming the most hateful and violent words I have ever heard uttered. I thought I had understood racism and prejudice. I understood nothing.
I was becoming enraged. I wanted to fight back. As I began looking for a rock or anything, a chant was growing in the stream of marchers; I expected a confrontation until I heard what they were chanting. To fight the shouts of "Nigger Lovers" and "You will Hang" was a chant of "We Love You" in return.
I didn't understand. How can people met with lifelong hatred and discrimination act in return with Love? In the face of people threatening to kill you, they reply with "I Love You".
I broke inside. I collapsed. The people around me grabbed me, pulled me up and helped me to my feet. I heard the words beside me "It's okay brother, I have you" and I regained my footing and made it to the end.
There is a picture of me sitting on a curb shortly afterward looking exhausted and dazed. 25 years later I am still exhausted and dazed.
I try to inform everything I do in my life with this experience- the morals I raised my three amazing daughters with, how I still to this day try to make changes in this ever-broken world of ours.
There are so many awful things that humans do to each other. I truly believe they can only be resolved with a genuine love and caring for each other. Unequivocally, everyone should have the same opportunity to equal treatment under law, clean food and water, safe housing, health care and good education. And mutual respect. I have not ever heard a single argument to lead me to believe anything other than this.
This is the underlying theme of the Occupy Movement. It's about everything really. But most of all, it's about love and respect for us all.
Email me if you want to read some of my poems.
Much Love and Respect to you all

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Tomorrow– Israel ends the embargoes and sends several convoys of food, water, medical and building supplies into the refugee camps and Palestinian ghettos.

Gaza, West Bank and a reasonable amount of additional workable land are turned over to Palestinian authorities on an agreement of a non-aggression pact by all parties. Truth and Reconciliation policies are enacted. Multicultural educational programs are deployed emphasizing individualism and respect.

Jerusalem is deemed a multinational/multicultural city free city with a governing board of participant states.

Israel and Palestine agree to host UN peacekeeping forces comprised of western, middle-eastern and African forces to guard borders and enforce peace. Leaders of forces that violate the peace agreement will be subject to UN Tribunals.

Integrated border towns will be built. Israel agrees to devote a portion of their armed forces personnel and budget to helping Palestine rebuild their infrastructure, towns and cities. Semitic multi-culturalism is encouraged. A common people with different beliefs as an example of what humanity can achieve once ignorance and stupidity are put aside.

TOMORROW.

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Why the FUCK doesn’t our congress have the balls to impeach this fucker? Lied into a war that has raped a country, bankrupted the United States morally and financially and left us without over 4,000 patriotic men and women who otherwise would be home caring for their families or coming to the rescue when a flood hits or a tornado strikes. We allow our president to reward treason and we hold him and his administration accountable for NOTHING.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

For all of this countries’ faults and missteps and wrongness; these words had meaning- had substance; drove us to right our wrongs and continually grow better as a nation and as a people.

We the people have allowed the presidency to be perverted into a form that openly mocks the foundations that begat the United States of America. We have betrayed ourselves.

the drunk in the pickup that swerved behind you inches from your bumper
you glanced down to change the station and didn’t see
his truck slam into the culvert
and flip over three times

the lightning that hit the tree right there in the field a few feet away
scaring the shit out of you and your little sister
who peed herself and cried and you held her shaking body
while trying to find your parents in the sudden torrential rains

the last of the Christmas candy, the butterscotch
that you had saved to savor when all the family had gone home
lodged in your throat- breathing barely just barely long enough
that it dissolved enough to swallow gasping and leaving your throat raw for days

we have had these, and we are thankful we are still here

but this is America

In Darfur starvation and rape
In Iraq explosions at the market
In Brazil Death Squads in the slums

Death is everywhere- we don’t feel it like the rest of the world.
When a calamity hits us, the world grieves with us
Even though the world itself is usually in mourning
Already

Imagine being a Jew
surviving Hitler
and war
unknown lands
and languages
and rising above it all
to become a distinguished professor
at a quiet college
to die being shot to death
holding a door closed
yelling at your students
to get to safety

the absolute best
and the absolute worst
of humanity separated
by
an inch of wood.

32 incredible lives lost
That a simple law would have prevented
We know these peoples lives
We cry with their family and friends

We need not to forget
The hundreds of other
Incredible lives lost daily
Just as brutally
For equally senseless reasons